Picture This: Putting Beef and Climate Into Perspective

Beef has gotten a very bad rap when it comes to climate, and in the popular media but is it an exaggeration to say that reducing beef consumption is a number one priority and one of the most important things we can do to reduce our impact on climate?

In their research about influencing consumer choices to reduce climate impact McFadden, et al. (2022) make a very important point. We have to consider more than just the potential impact we have on climate change when it comes to decisions about food, shelter and transportation. We have to look at the big picture, the costs, benefits and 'plasticity' - how impactable are people when it comes to changing behavior? What has the greatest realistic expected impact on climate? 

When thinking about the problem this way, one question that comes to mind is - how many other seemingly arbitrary choices (other than reducing beef consumption) could we make in our daily lives that would have a similar climate benefit?  

Let Me Count the Ways (other arbitrary ways to reduce your carbon footprint)

Another article by Obringer, et al. (2021) provides some interesting insights about the carbon footprint associated with various ways we use the internet:

• Globally, the Internet use has a carbon footprint ranging from 28 to 63 g CO2 equivalent per gigabyte (GB)
• The world median is 32.3 g CO2 per GB
• The U.S. median is 9% higher
• Common streaming services require 7 GB per hour of streaming using ultra HD quality video and have a carbon footprint of 441 g CO2e/hr
• Streaming 4 hrs/day with HD quality video produces about 53 kg CO2e/month
• Streaming at a lower quality SD video would reduce CO2e/month to about 2.5 kg
• Standard video conference services use ~ 2.5 GB/hr associated with 157 g CO2e/hr
• 15 one hour meetings a week equate to a monthly carbon footprint of 9.4 kg
• By turning off the video camera at an individual level, monthly CO2e emissions could be reduced from 9.4 kg to 377 g CO2e. This is equivalent to enough emissions savings to offset charging a smart phone each night for over 3 years (1151 days). 

Separate research reported in MIT Technology review indicates that training common AI models that underpin a number of the technologies and apps we leverage every day and will continue to use in the future can produce as much as 5 times the lifetime CO2 emissions of a single car (Strubell et al., 2019 & Haoarchive, 2019) 

Framing Up the Discussion

Obringer, et al. (2021) certainly motivates us to think of a number of arbitrary ways we can reduce our carbon footprint other than making dietary changes when we think of all the various ways we use internet services in the age of Zoom meetings, Netflix, Amazon Prime, and smart phones. But let's take another look at beef consumption. 

• In the U.S. the average consumer consumes about 60 pounds of beef/year
• On a monthly basis that equates to 5 lbs or about 2.26 kg/beef/person
• According to Rotz (2019) 1 kg of U.S. beef produces 22 kg of CO2 equivalent emissions

So if an individual consumer gives up U.S. beef for a month that equates to a reduction of about 50 kg CO2e emissions. It looks like the emissions related to beef consumption may be very similar to streaming HD video on a monthly basis given the assumptions above. 

On the other hand, it looks like giving up beef for a month would have a much bigger impact on climate than giving up your Zoom camera for a month! More than 2x the impact. 

But that is not even the full picture. We also have to consider how livestock emissions differ from emissions related to many other arbitrary things we do on a daily basis. Sure CO2 is CO2 but there's more to the story and that requires consideration of the biogenic carbon cycle pictured below:

That little cloud in the sketch represents the carbon footprint of beef - and if we are considering U.S. beef it represents less than 1/2 of 1%  (i.e. < .5%) of global greenhouse gas emissions. If all U.S. consumers give up U.S. beef, then that little cloud completely goes away. On the other hand, if you decide to consume the same average amount of beef you have consumed for decades, that decision is not adding any new net GHG emissions to the atmosphere. We just keep recycling that same little cloud over and over. And as production technologies and management practices improve, we can eat the same amount of beef or more and make the cloud even smaller. But it doesn't get any bigger and on the net beef consumption doesn't have any new net impact on the climate. We also have to consider tradeoffs related to nutrient density to really grasp all the implications related to food choices and climate see here and here.

But, as pictured below, the story changes when we shift our attention to many other arbitrary choices we make on any given day: 

Almost every thing else we do that creates CO2 emissions bypasses the biogenic carbon cycle and adds new and long lasting greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere. If we give up U.S. beef, that little cloud goes away (and as stated before has a minimal impact on a global scale). But for example, every time you turn on your web cam or stream HD, you are contributing to adding new and permanent long lasting GHG emissions to the atmosphere. So maybe according to the facts above, the little cloud you are recycling from monthly beef consumption is 2X larger than the cloud you are producing from your Zoom meeting. However, every time you zoom you are making another little cloud. And those little clouds can add up to be much bigger and never go away even if you eventually stop 'zooming.' On the other hand - every month you are streaming video you are producing a new cloud just as big as the one that's just being recycled if you consume beef, and its having a permanent and lasting impact on climate. 

There are many other little things we do just as arbitrary as the decision to consume U.S. beef that also have important if not more consequential implications for climate change.

What should we do? What is the most important thing you can do to have an impact on climate? If we are really concerned about this we have to ask ourselves when it comes to combating climate change, which behaviors and barriers should we be targeting to have the greatest impact? 

As a personal choice some might say why not give up beef and also do other things to fight climate change - we should be doing everything we can. Many might agree that is a good idea - but being good isn't enough for an idea to scale effectively and always have the impact we desire. Trying to scale one idea based on beef consumption can risk drawing attention and resources away from more effective strategies. It could lead to odd and distracted behaviors like having a salad delivered by Uber Eats instead of a steak and thinking every order like this is doing your little part to save the planet as pictured below:

A broader perspective asks, how should we prioritize our time, attention and resources TODAY to have the greatest impact tomorrow? Do we start with that little cloud from beef while we continue to livestream HD quality from Netflix and have our salad delivered by Uber eats?

Turning off the video essentially has an easy button and cuts off the unending flow of climate emissions. But changing culture and food systems requires a lot more effort with a much lower expected payoff. We'd be shooting for 1/2 of 1% of global GHG emissions max and that's not even a realistic goal. 

Related Readings:

Behavioral Economics, Beef, and Climate: https://ageconomist.blogspot.com/2023/02/behavioral-economics-beef-and-climate.html 

Training a single AI model can emit as much carbon as five cars in their lifetimes: Deep learning has a terrible carbon footprint. By Karen Haoarchive.  June 6, 2019 https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/06/06/239031/training-a-single-ai-model-can-emit-as-much-carbon-as-five-cars-in-their-lifetimes/ 

References:

Estimated micronutrient shortfalls of the EAT–Lancet planetary health diet.Beal, Ty et al.The Lancet Planetary Health, Volume 7, Issue 3, e233 - e237

McFadden BR, Ferraro PJ, Messer KD (2022) Private costs of carbon emissions abatement by limiting beef consumption and vehicle use in the United States. PLOS ONE 17(1): e0261372. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261372

Obringer, R., Rachunok, B., Maia-Silva, D., Arbabzadeh, M., Nateghi, R., & Madani, K. (2021). The overlooked environmental footprint of increasing Internet use. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 167, [105389]. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2020.105389

C. Alan Rotz, Senorpe Asem-Hiablie, Sara Place, Greg Thoma, Environmental footprints of beef cattle production in the United States, Agricultural Systems, Volume 169, 2019, Pages 1-13, ISSN 0308-521X, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agsy.2018.11.005.

Smedman A, Lindmark-Månsson H, Drewnowski A, Edman AK. Nutrient density of beverages in relation to climate impact. Food Nutr Res. 2010 Aug 23;54. doi: 10.3402/fnr.v54i0.5170. PMID: 20806074; PMCID: PMC2924839.

Strubell, Emma & Ganesh, Ananya & Mccallum, Andrew. (2019). Energy and Policy Considerations for Deep Learning in NLP. 3645-3650. 10.18653/v1/P19-1355.

Nudging Back: Turning Off Your Camera May Be Good for the Climate

How many of us have been nudged during a zoom meeting to turn on your camera? In recent research (Obringer, et al. 2021) published in the journal Resources, Conservation and Recycling, they have attempted to quantify the carbon footprint of using your camera during a virtual meeting. Can this new research be used to nudge back and keep your camera off in the name of improving your company's ESG reporting? Should we be putting more energy in nudging this direction vs. focusing on more difficult dietary behavior changes? 

Background

In a recent post I wrote about the ethics of dietary nudges focused on meat consumption. Particularly I discussed Blondin et al. (2022). In that article they investigated the use of descriptive messages as a means to nudge consumers to choose plant based foods over meat. Below is one of the messages using small change-big impact framing (which they found to be the most impactful in their research) to nudge consumers to choose a vegetarian dish over meat:

"Each of us can make a positive difference for the planet. Swapping just one meat dish for a plant-based one saves greenhouse gas emissions that are equivalent to the energy used to charge your phone for two years. Your small change can make a big difference."

Over the years I have thought a lot about the focus on meat, and particularly beef consumption, as a way to reduce our carbon foot print. The nudge above gives the impression that you could make a big difference in relation to the climate by choosing a salad over steak. Similarly I've been intrigued by other popular movements with similar goals like Meatless Mondays. 

There is a clear ceiling on the impact we can have when it comes to beef consumption. Even if we eliminated from our diets all beef produced and consumed in the U.S. it would reduce global GHG emissions by less than 1/2 of 1%. (EPA GHG Emissions Inventory, Rotz et al, 2018). 

Are these movements and the language used above giving people the impression they are making a bigger difference with regard to climate change than they really are? Could they be distractions from more impactful behaviors? 

Nudging for Impact

McFadden, et al. (2022) discusses important considerations related to the potential impact of nudges given consumer plasticity (willingness and ability to change) and realistic assessments of climate impact. (Realistic assessments of impact and ethics were the primary focus of my previous post.) 

McFadden, et al. discuss how challenging and costly dietary changes can be given strong consumer preferences. They find:

"our estimates imply that it would cost at least $642 per tCO2e to reduce GHG emissions by inducing 50% of our study sample to eliminate beef consumption...currently the price to offset a tCO2e (based on existing markets for carbon offsets) is between $10 to $13." 

When thinking about the problem this way, one question that comes to mind is - how many other seemingly arbitrary choices (other than reducing beef consumption) could we make in our daily lives that would have a similar climate benefit?  

Let Me Count the Ways (other arbitrary ways to reduce your carbon footprint)

The article mentioned above by Obringer, et al. (2021) provides some interesting insights about the carbon footprint associated with various ways we use the internet:

• Globally, the Internet use has a carbon footprint ranging from 28 to 63 g CO2 equivalent per gigabyte (GB)
• The world median is 32.3 g CO2 per GB
• The U.S. median is 9% higher
• Common streaming services require 7 GB per hour of streaming using ultra HD quality video and have a carbon footprint of 441 g CO2e/hr
• Streaming 4 hrs/day with HD quality video produces about 53 kg CO2e/month
• Streaming at a lower quality SD video would reduce CO2e/month to about 2.5 kg
• Standard video conference services use ~ 2.5 GB/hr associated with 157 g CO2e/hr
• 15 one hour meetings a week equate to a monthly carbon footprint of 9.4 kg
• By turning off the video camera at an individual level, monthly CO2e emissions could be reduced from 9.4 kg to 377 g CO2e. This is equivalent to enough emissions savings to offset charging a smart phone each night for over 3 years (1151 days). 

Separate research reported in MIT Technology review indicates that training common AI models that underpin a number of the technologies and apps we leverage every day and will continue to use in the future can produce as much as 5 times the lifetime CO2 emissions of a single car (Strubell et al., 2019 & Haoarchive, 2019) 

Framing Up the Discussion

Obringer, et al. (2021) certainly motivates us to think of a number of arbitrary ways we can reduce our carbon footprint other than making dietary changes when we think of all the various ways we use internet services in the age of Zoom meetings, Netflix, Amazon Prime, and smart phones. But let's take another look at beef consumption. 

• In the U.S. the average consumer consumes about 60 pounds of beef/year
• On a monthly basis that equates to 5 lbs or about 2.26 kg/beef/person
• According to Rotz (2019) 1 kg of U.S. beef produces 22 kg of CO2 equivalent emissions
• So if an individual consumer gives up U.S. beef for a month that equates to a reduction of about 50 kg CO2e emissions 

It looks like the emissions related to beef consumption may be very similar to streaming HD video on a monthly basis given the assumption above. 

Just based on the facts above- it looks like giving up beef for a month would have a much bigger impact on climate than giving up your Zoom camera for a month! More than 2x the impact. 

On the other hand -  giving up our Netflix binge could have the same climate impact as completely giving up beef! 

It's not quite so simple. 

While it seems like we are making apples to apples CO2e comparisons we have to consider other differences in the way GHG emissions behave especially as this relates to methane and how it is factored into CO2e calculations. See below:

Methane emissions associated with routine meat consumption do not represent a new net lasting contribution to GHG emissions, but instead are a recycling of already existing methane emissions. However, turning on your zoom camera or streaming HD video is a new behavior that leads to the release of new sources of methane and CO2 with long term permanent warming effects on the climate. The decision to continue with routine beef consumption has different implications for the climate than the decision to pump new methane emissions into the atmosphere by turning on your camera or binging with HD video quality. 

We also have to ask ourselves - which behavior is the most impactable? Going back to McFadden, et al. (2022) when it comes to combating climate change, which behaviors and barriers should we be targeting to have the greatest impact? People are already very inclined to turn off their cameras during a meeting - and there is literally and easy button to do that! Reducing how much we stream video is relatively easy change to make. But changing diets is extremely difficult. There is no easy button.  When we consider the tradeoffs involved (more discussion below) and fully incorporate the ramifications of the biogenic carbon cycle, in addition to consumer plasticity, reducing beef consumption may not be the top priority. 

We could think of it this way. On a given day, if you decide to consume the same average amount of beef you have consumed for decades, that decision is not adding any new net GHG emissions to the atmosphere. But every time you turn on your web cam or stream HD, you are contributing to adding new and permanent long lasting GHG emissions to the atmosphere. 

It is certainly true that if you chose NOT to have the beef there is a climate benefit - and the numbers shared above approximately reflect that. If everyone in the U.S. made the same decision 365 days/year there is a minimal upper limit on that impact, but there would certainly be a reduction in GHG emissions. If we stop eating beef, the emissions from the last decade go away with it due to the biogenic carbon cycle. Even if it takes decades to change the behavior this is true (based on beef consumption trends and technological advances and remember with constant levels of beef consumption over time new emissions aren't added and don't accumulate b/c they are simply being recycled)

But if we wait a decade to start turning off our web cams or downgrading to SD all those past emissions stay where they are and continue to warm the planet. From a behavior change perspective the urgency to turn of the camera and downgrade our streaming seems much greater. 

Some might agree that it makes sense to do both, but it would seem remiss to focus on beef consumption only while ignoring all the many other arbitrary behaviors we could target that may be more urgent and more impactable from a behavior change perspective.

A Path Toward Better Framing and Nudging

In a previous post, I already covered some of the implications of how we frame food choices and the impact on climate. But perhaps the framing of beef vs. salad is completely wrong to begin with. When framing food choices, are we making a mistake when we discuss what is healthy vs. unhealthy in the context of food groups (meat vs. vegetables) or macro nutrients (fat vs. protein vs. carbs)? When we add climate, ethics, and politics to the recipe do we risk taking this to orthorexic extremes that end up causing as much harm as good?

These kind of broad categorizations can limit our thinking and fail to capture the nuance in the tradeoffs involved. When it comes to balancing these tradeoffs a framing that considers specific context (knowledge of the circumstances of time and place), individual consumer preferences (plasticity), nutrient density (see here and here), climate impact (accurately reflecting the behavior of carbon and methane), and technological change is essential.

Related Posts

The Ethics of Dietary Nudges and Behavior Change Focused on Climate and Sustainability. https://ageconomist.blogspot.com/2022/10/the-ethics-of-dietary-nudges-and.html

Innovation, Disruption, and Low(er) Carbon Beef https://ageconomist.blogspot.com/2022/01/innovation-disruption-and-lower-carbon.html 

Facts, Figures, or Fiction: Unwarranted Criticisms of the Biden Administration's Failure to Target Methane Emissions from Livestock. https://ageconomist.blogspot.com/2021/12/facts-figures-or-fiction-unfair.html 

Can Capitalism Be A Force For Good When it Comes to Food? https://ageconomist.blogspot.com/2021/07/can-capitalism-be-force-for-good-when.html

References: 

Blondin, Stacy & Attwood, Sophie & Vennard, Daniel & Mayneris, Vanessa. (2022). Environmental Messages Promote Plant-Based Food Choices: An Online Restaurant Menu Study. World Resources Institute. 10.46830/wriwp.20.00137. 

McFadden BR, Ferraro PJ, Messer KD (2022) Private costs of carbon emissions abatement by limiting beef consumption and vehicle use in the United States. PLOS ONE 17(1): e0261372. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261372

Training a single AI model can emit as much carbon as five cars in their lifetimes: Deep learning has a terrible carbon footprint. By Karen Haoarchive.  June 6, 2019 https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/06/06/239031/training-a-single-ai-model-can-emit-as-much-carbon-as-five-cars-in-their-lifetimes/ 

Obringer, R., Rachunok, B., Maia-Silva, D., Arbabzadeh, M., Nateghi, R., & Madani, K. (2021). The overlooked environmental footprint of increasing Internet use. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 167, [105389]. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2020.105389

C. Alan Rotz, Senorpe Asem-Hiablie, Sara Place, Greg Thoma, Environmental footprints of beef cattle production in the United States, Agricultural Systems, Volume 169, 2019, Pages 1-13, ISSN 0308-521X, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agsy.2018.11.005.

Strubell, Emma & Ganesh, Ananya & Mccallum, Andrew. (2019). Energy and Policy Considerations for Deep Learning in NLP. 3645-3650. 10.18653/v1/P19-1355.

Notes: 

The methodology used by Obringer may be subject to criticism and may not consider long term emission reductions due to efficiencies produced by technological change over time (not unlike beef production). I'm using their results as motivation for a discussion about considering the tradeoffs and nuances often left out of discussions associated with food choices. We can also recognize that zoom and other technologies may have had a significant role to play in reducing travel and related transportation and other emissions related to in person meetings. However, at the margin, these technologies still lead to ongoing permanent emissions and warming effects compared to beef consumption.

Canceling Science and Monetizing Outrage

If we maintain the fantasy of a puritan separation of science and business then innovation will dry up and die. There will be no one left to block and tackle for science or help us navigate the valley of death that lies between a scientific discovery and a cure, product, or better policy. The negative epistemic valence being cast by digital and mainstream media is polluting the commons of scientific communication, hindering the public's ability to distinguish fact from fiction. The implications for health, climate, democracy, and human welfare are tremendous.

Background

In a recent article in the New York Times the intersection between business and science are at the center of debate regarding ongoing climate research by Dr. Frank Mitloehner at UC Davis. This parallels a prior article from some years ago about  Dr. Kevin Folta and his work as it relates to agricultural biotechnology and science communication and outreach.

In the article, it seems to assert that Mitloehner's industry connections and collaboration are compromising his integrity and research as it relates to the relationship between livestock and GHG emissions.

Below are some of the most critical comments from the article:

“Industry funding does not necessarily compromise research, but it does inevitably have a slant on the directions with which you ask questions and the tendency to interpret those results in a way that may favor industry,” said Matthew Hayek, an assistant professor in environmental studies at New York University.

“Almost everything that I’ve seen from Dr. Mitloehner’s communications has downplayed every impact of livestock,” he said. “His communications are discordant from the scientific consensus, and the evidence that he has brought to bear against that consensus has not been, in my eyes, sufficient to challenge it.”

Communicating the Science

Assertions are made, but no evidence is offered in relation to how Mitloehner's research is compromised or in what ways his work contrasts with any scientific consensus. But it certainly puts his communications about his research on the chopping block. This is a big risk of doing science communication and outreach, as I have discussed before here.  In attempting to simplify complex scientific ideas for a broader audience, communicators are at risk for getting called out for any particular nuance they failed to include. It also creates enough space for any critic to write an entire thesis about why you are wrong. As I stated previously:

"Usually this is about how they didn't capture every particular nuance of the theory, failed to include a statement about certain critical assumptions, or over simplified the complex thing they were trying to explain in simple terms to begin with. This kind of negative social harassment seems to be par for the course when attempting to communicate on social media ... A culture that is toxic toward effective science communication becomes an impediment to science itself and leaves a void waiting be filled by science deniers, activists, policy makers, decision makers, and special interests."

One example called out in the NYT article was the production of a video called Rethinking Methane:

The article states: 

“The message of the five-minute video is that, because methane is a relatively short-lived greenhouse gas (once it’s in the atmosphere, it becomes less potent as the years go by), cattle would not cause additional warming as long as their numbers did not grow.”

“The argument leans on a method developed by scientists that aims to better account for the global-warming effects of short-lived greenhouse gases like methane. However, the use of that method by an industry “as a way of justifying high current emissions is very inappropriate” 

When considering sources of GHG emissions, understanding the way methane behaves is fundamental to understanding climate change, and personal and policy decisions related to mitigating future warming.  Understanding this can help direct attention to those areas where we can make the biggest difference in terms impacting climate change. As discussed in Allen et al. (2018):

"While shorter-term goals for emission rates of individual gases and broader metrics encompassing emissions’ co-impacts remain potentially useful in defining how cumulative contributions will be achieved, summarising commitments using a metric that accurately reflects their contributions to future warming would provide greater transparency in the implications of global climate agreements as well as enabling fairer and more effective design of domestic policies and measures."

But instead of diving into the meat (pun intended) of the science, the second statement about this video makes an assertion about using this science to justify high current emissions. 

Is that what Dr. Mitloehner is doing in his many communications, or is it actually the case that when we estimate the impact of climate change he thinks we should be using metrics that do a better job capturing the dynamics of different GHGs?  If his science really led him to dismiss the 'current high emissions' related to methane then why would he be spending time and energy researching and communicating about ways to reduce GHG emissions related to methane via feed additives and other management practices? 

And when we talk about current high emissions related to livestock what do we mean - compared to what?  The article states:

"scientific research has long shown that agriculture is also a major source of planet-warming emissions, ranking below the leading causes — the burning of coal, gas and oil — but still producing almost 15 percent of global emissions, the United Nations estimates."

That is a nice factoid, but it conflates all global emissions from agriculture with livestock emissions. It also makes kind of an ecological fallacy if we attribute that global number to the specific GHG emissions related to livestock of a specific country, particularly when the audience here is U.S. consumers who mostly eat beef produced in the U.S. (where in fact the the contribution to total global GHG emissions is less than 1/2 of 1%.)

The fact about global numbers is relevant to Mitloehner's work only in the sense that his research could have much greater impact in developing countries where GHG emissions may be 10X greater (EPA GHG Emissions Inventory, Rotz et al, 2018). As stated in a recent article in Foreign Policy: 

"Generalizations about animal agriculture hide great regional differences and often lead to diet guidelines promoting shifts away from animal products that are not feasible for the world’s poor....A nuanced approach to livestock was endorsed in the latest mitigation report of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).....there is great room for improvement in the efficiency of livestock production systems across developing countries" 

But these nuances are lost in the NYT article along with recognition that there are multiple margins to consider when thinking about the tradeoffs related to food production and consumption. Policy should consider the numerous choices consumers and producers make in a modern and global economy in relation to nutrition, energy, and climate.  

Parallels with the Past

When reflecting on this NYT article and the prior article focused on Dr. Kevin Folta I see at least three parallels:

1) An appeal to the nirvana fallacy of a perfect separation between science and business. While this is not explicitly stated, both stories paint a picture of malfeasance and industry influence connected with the work of these scientists, without providing evidence that that their research or findings are biased or conflict with any major consensus. They simply imply that any industry connection is questionable, Guilt by association alone.

2) Establishing some theatre of doubt around the integrity and character of these scientists in the mind of readers, the next step involves a kind of ad hominem reasoning suggesting that because of these industry connections and questionable integrity of the researchers, anything they claim must be false or misleading or contradictory to the mainstream scientific consensus.

Having established the first two parallels, the public is then set up to make a third mistake in reasoning:

3) Argument by intimidation. The implication here is that anyone that references or leans on the work of these scientists must also have questionable integrity or character. This can be invoked as a way to bypass debate and avoid discussing the actual science or evidence supporting the claims one may be making. I'm not saying that the NYT article does this explicitly, but this article pollutes the science communication environment in a way that makes this more likely to happen..

This leads me to ask - why would mainstream media follow this kind of recipe when producing stories?

Changing Business Models for Modern Media

In Jonathan Rauch's book, the Constitution of Knowledge, he discusses how in the old days of print media economies of scale supported the production of real news or reality based content. But new business models have been built on information, not knowledge and are geared toward monetizing eyeballs and clicks. This new business model favors "professionals in the arts of manipulative outrage: the kinds of actors who were more skilled at capturing attention not persuasion and who were more interested in dissemination than communication."

Rauch observes: "By the early 2020s high quality news was struggling to stay in business, while opinion, outrage, derivative boilerplate, and digital exhaust (personal data generated by internet users) enjoyed a thriving commercial market."

Quoting one digital media pundit: "you can't sell news for what it costs to make."

As mainstream media has adopted social and digital media strategies it may not be surprising to see patterns like those above emerge.

 In 2020 former President Barak Obama said in The Atlantic: 

"if we do not have the capacity to distinguish what's true from what's false, then by definition the marketplace of ideas doesn't work. And by definition our democracy doesn't work. We are entering into an epistemological crisis." 

Communicating science is challenging enough. The battle with misinformation and disinformation did not begin or end with the COVID pandemic. It doesn't help when major media outlets would rather cash in on eyeballs and outrage, rather than communicate science.

Related Readings and Resources

Allen, M.R., Shine, K.P., Fuglestvedt, J.S. et al. A solution to the misrepresentations of CO2-equivalent emissions of short-lived climate pollutants under ambitious mitigation. npj Clim Atmos Sci 1, 16 (2018) doi:10.1038/s41612-018-0026-8

C. Alan Rotz et al. Environmental footprints of beef cattle production in the United States, Agricultural Systems (2018). DOI: 10.1016/j.agsy.2018.11.005 

Facts, Figures, or Fiction: Unwarranted Criticisms of the Biden Administration's Failure to Target Methane Emissions from Livestock. https://ageconomist.blogspot.com/2021/12/facts-figures-or-fiction-unfair.html  

The Ethics of Dietary Nudges and Behavior Change Focused on Climate and Sustainability. https://ageconomist.blogspot.com/2022/10/the-ethics-of-dietary-nudges-and.html

Will Eating Less U.S. Beef Save the Rainforests? http://realclearagriculture.blogspot.com/2020/01/will-eating-less-us-beef-save.html

Innovation, Disruption, and Low(er) Carbon Beef

Is There Really Such a Thing as Low-Carbon Beef? That is the title of a recent article in Wired. The article was referring to a new USDA program that will allow beef to be labeled and marketed as having a lower carbon footprint based on a lifecycle assessment and audit of production practices. To be lower carbon it must be 10% lower. Here is a bit more detail:

"Verification of reduced greenhouse gas emissions in a group of cattle using a comprehensive life-cycle assessment model that incorporates impacts associated with management practices and cattle performance throughout the life of the animals.A qualified group of cattle must have life-cycle greenhouse emissions at least 10% lower than industry baseline based on the Low Carbon Beef Scoring Tables." 

Before getting into this further I will first answer the question posed by the title. Yes - on a relative global basis, beef produced and consumed in the U.S. is low carbon. Beef in the U.S. accounts for about 4% of total GHG emissions. But on a global scale, which matters most to climate change, overall, total GHG emissions related to U.S. beef consumption accounts for less than 1/2 of 1% (i.e. .5%) of GHG emissions (EPA GHG Emissions Inventory, Rotz et al, 2018). Additionally when compared to beef produced and consumed in other parts of the world, the carbon footprint of beef produced and consumed in the U.S. is 10 times or more lower (Herrero et al., 2013). There is no arguing against the fact  that when we look at the big picture, U.S. beef is low carbon beef. Of course it is fair to ask, within the U.S. can we improve our carbon footprint? Our history tells us yes we can and as I will discuss below, the new USDA labeling program cited in Wired may be one way to incentivize getting there. 

Will this new labeling and certification initiative be misleading as the article says? I am one of the first people to speak out against misleading food labels. Just see related posts below. There is currently a lot of confusion about the sustainability of our food choices,  and consumers are having to use a lot of proxies that are less than ideal to attempt to understand their carbon footprint. Examples include local, organic, 'hormone free', or non-GMO products (see my post about issue related to free-from food labeling). All of these options can in fact have higher carbon footprints, lead to more intense resource use, and have negative social and environmental consequences despite how popular some fads may be or what food marketers may imply about their product. By having a verified measure of carbon footprint associated with beef, the new USDA initiative should actually provide clarity to a confused and often misled consumer. Precisely the opposite of the concern raised in Wired.

Misleading or Realistic Recommendations?

The article in Wired quotes the following recommendation: "low-carbon certifications won’t fix the problems caused by beef consumption. “We need to substantially readjust our diets'

Another common suggestion to go along with this is to consume more plant based or cultured alternative meat sources. These suggestions suffer from two major drawbacks. From a behavioral science perspective, they are challenging behaviors to target. 

In a previous post, I discussed how we need to think about the problem we are trying to solve or outcome we are trying to achieve (climate change mitigation) and consider the behavioral map that relates all of the target actions we could take to achieve this outcome. Which solutions are technically correct but also the most impactful at scale from a behavior change perspective? Is a reduction in modern U.S. beef production or consumption the target behavior we should be trying to change compared to other options?

Paul Ferraro, Brandon McFadden, and Kent Messer take this head on using an auction experiment to measure 'plasticity' or the willingness of non-adopters to change behavior (Ferraro, et al., 2022).They find that targeting beef consumption might not be the most socially cost effective approach to mitigating climate change compared to other strategies for abatement (like carbon offsets or policies that encourage more technical innovations). They state:

 "Policy interventions are likely to provide the best return on investment when they target choices and behaviors for which abatement potential and plasticity are high enough to lead to meaningful reductions in GHG emissions....our estimates imply that it would cost at least $642 per tCO2e to reduce GHG emissions by inducing 50% of our study sample to eliminate beef consumption...currently the price to offset a tCO2e (based on existing markets for carbon offsets) is between $10 to $13." 

These costs are not only higher than market based estimates of the cost of carbon but also most estimates of the social cost of carbon as well even at the lower plasticity levels. They state: "in the U.S., a median estimate of the SCC is $48 per tCO2e."

The Fallacy of Disruption

The recommendations from Wired (and similar recommendations promoting cultured or alternative meats) may also suffer from what I am calling the fallacy of disruption. In his book Experimentation Works: The Surprising Power of Business Experiments, Steffan Thomke discusses what drives many important innovations as high velocity incrementalism. Not huge disruptive leaps:

"Even though the business world glorifies disruptive ideas, most progress is achieved by implementing hundreds of thousands of minor improvements that can have a big cumulative effect."

When looking at total economic growth, economists have estimated that 77% of economic growth is driven by existing products not via creative destruction associated with new products (Garcia‐Macia et al., 2019). While creative destruction is a well recognized and essential process in our economy, it is important to recognize there is a lot of progress to be made through high velocity incrementalism.  

The suggestion from the article that alludes to making huge technological disruptive leaps (like cell cultured meat alternatives) or behavior changes (making significant dietary changes) just isn't consistent with what we know about behavioral economics and the economics of innovation. As the work from Ferraro et al. has recently shown, even small changes in beef reduction aren't as practical as we might think. 

Internalizing Climate Externalities via Technological Change and Innovation

Climate change problems are what economists refer to as externalities, which at a high level are unpriced negative consequences of our behavior that fall on third parties or future generations. One way externalities are internalized are through technological innovations, which as discussed above, can result from incremental changes to the way we produce and consume goods and services. We have witnessed this in the beef industry over the last few decades. Thanks to advances in economic development, technological change, innovations in management, marketing, and pricing value in the beef industry (for just a few examples see here, here, here, here, and here), we've seen gains in beef production and quality. Additionally, in 2007 compared to 1977 we were able to produce the same amount of beef using roughly 30% fewer cattle and 30% less land. This represents a huge impact on global warming potential when we consider the implications of this in the context of methane emissions and the biogenic carbon cycle. As previously discussed, :

"when you get in your car to go to your favorite restaurant, the associated methane and CO2 emissions that result represents new and long lasting emissions. For the most part the steak or burger on your plate doesn't directly add any new warming potential to the atmosphere that didn't already exist, nor has any steak or burger you may have eaten in the last 30 years based on this data."

Feed and and water usage were also down between 15-20% with a 16% lower carbon footprint (Capper, 2007). All of these factors have culminated in a healthier, more nutritious, higher quality product with a lower carbon footprint. As noted above, compared to other places in the world, the impact of technological innovation is many fold.

It is important to note that these innovations were market driven. They entailed voluntary behavior changes by both producers and consumers that led to higher quality, more nutritious, and more environmentally friendly beef. In addition to helping provide more clarity to consumers compared to existing labeling schemes, the new USDA labels will only help incentivize this innovative process by effectively putting a price on carbon, in absence of any new regulatory frameworks, subsidies, permits, or carbon taxes. 

The history of food innovation in the beef industry tells us this trend of voluntary and market driven advancement will continue. While in the life sciences, the 'high velocity' part of high velocity incrementalism is more challenging than designing a search engine or smartphone app, with the convergence of big data, AI, and genomics,  innovations are happening faster. Current trends in ESG reporting and concerns about scope 3 emissions, along with advances in block chain and other source verification technologies will only further catalyze future advances. We just don't have this kind of momentum behind drastic dietary fads related to huge reductions in beef consumption, going vegan, or alternative proteins. 

Related Reading

Rational Irrationality and Satter's Hierarchy of Food Needs http://ageconomist.blogspot.com/2018/10/rational-irrationality-and-satters.html  

The 'free-from' Nash equilibrium 

http://ageconomist.blogspot.com/2018/02/a-nash-equilibrium-strategy-for-free.html 

The Challenging Tradeoff of Weighing Biased Consumer Preferences Against Marketing Food with Integrity. http://ageconomist.blogspot.com/2017/12/allenge-tradeoff-of-weighing-biased.html  

GMOs and QR Codes: Consumers need more than a label they need a learning path. 

https://ageconomist.blogspot.com/2016/08/gmos-is-just-any-label-enough.html 

Food Miles: https://ageconomist.blogspot.com/2011/12/usda-research-food-miles-local-beef.html 

Food Desert Mirage https://ageconomist.blogspot.com/2020/01/dollar-stores-and-food-desertification.html 

References

HJ. L. Capper, The environmental impact of beef production in the United States: 1977 compared with 2007, Journal of Animal Science, Volume 89, Issue 12, December 2011, Pages 4249–4261, https://doi.org/10.2527/jas.2010-3784

Private costs of carbon emissions abatement by limiting beef consumption and vehicle use in the United States. McFadden BR, Ferraro PJ, Messer KD (2022) Private costs of carbon emissions abatement by limiting beef consumption and vehicle use in the United States. PLOS ONE 17(1): e0261372. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261372

Daniel Garcia‐Macia & Chang‐Tai Hsieh & Peter J. Klenow, 2019. "How Destructive Is Innovation?," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 87(5), pages 1507-1541, September.

Herrero, M., P. Havlík, H. Valin, A. Notenbaert, M.C. Rufino, P. K. Thornton, M. Blümmel, F. Weiss, D. Grace, and M. Obersteiner. 2013. Biomass use, production, feed efficiencies, and greenhouse gas emissions from global livestock systems. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 110: 20888-20893

Facts, Figures, or Fiction: Unwarranted Criticisms of the Biden Administration's Failure to Target Methane Emissions from Livestock

Background

Methane has gotten a lot of attention recently in relation to fighting climate change:

"The oil, gas and coal industries are the largest source of human-caused methane emissions. An Environmental Defense Fund study found that cutting methane emissions now could slow the near-term rate of global warming by as much as 30%."

While these facts may be true, it takes theory to explain facts, and unfortunately bad theory leads to bad decisions even if we get the facts right. A recent article in Politico provides an example in it's criticism of the Biden administration's failure to target methane emissions from livestock to combat climate change:

"This creative accounting and the administration’s policies belittle the livestock industry’s role in the methane emergency. While Biden and other U.S. officials are preaching the importance of slashing methane emissions to prevent catastrophic warming and imposing tough new methane regulations on fossil fuel companies, they are allowing super-polluting meat and dairy corporations to continue to emit massive amounts of the same greenhouse gas with impunity."

Are all methane sources equal?

Accounting for methane is key, but there is a lot of nuance to understand about methane in order to account for it appropriately so that we take the right course of action when it comes to policy and food choices.

Let's start with a bigger picture looking at total GHG emissions by source:

Source: https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/inventory-us-greenhouse-gas-emissions-and-sinks 

When we drill into agriculture and focus on beef in the U.S. we find that it accounts for about 4% of total emissions. But on a global scale, which matters most to climate change, overall, total GHG emissions related to U.S. beef consumption accounts for less than 1/2 of 1% (i.e. .5%) of global GHG emissions (EPA GHG Emissions Inventory, Rotz et al, 2018). When we talk about methane emissions associated with eating U.S. sourced beef in the U.S., we are talking about a very thin slice of total global warming potential. 

When we zoom in on this slice of potential and focus on methane this is what we see according to the current administration's Methane Emissions Reduction Action Plan:

Source: https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/US-Methane-Emissions-Reduction-Action-Plan-1.pdf  

Enteric emissions account for all ruminant livestock emissions in the U.S. which would include both beef and dairy but that gives us a pretty good picture. Again, we have facts that are all true, but *how* should we interpret this? A naive interpretation would be to simply compare the pieces of the pie assuming that we can make apples to apples comparisons between each piece and choose a course of action based on the 'facts.'  But this would be misleading without understanding the underlying biology and data generating mechanisms giving rise to this data.

The crude infographic that I put together below sheds some light on this (See this video for a better illustration or Dr. Frank Mitloehner's more detailed explanation of the biogenic carbon cycle here; see also Allen, M.R., Shine, K.P., Fuglestvedt, J.S. et al., 2018). At the highest level, methane emissions produced by beef cattle are constantly recycled. The ultimate source of methane starts in plants and is consumed by livestock and later removed from the atmosphere in the form of CO2 by plants again to repeat. This can be visualized by a tank with water going in and eventually draining out. In this context methane is a 'flow' gas.

Methane sourced from natural gas and petroleum behaves differently. When we extract, refine, and burn fossil fuels the methane associated with this is released into the atmosphere, but absent any sort of mitigation it ultimately converts to CO2 where it remains to have a long lasting warming effect. This can be visualized by a tank with water going in but never draining out. 

In relation to the first tank representing enteric emissions from livestock, there are additional nuances. When we look at U.S. cattle inventories over the last 30 years what we see is that the rate of flow from the faucet has mostly been decreasing. We have not only been recycling the same methane in the atmosphere over and over the last few decades, but less of it. Thanks to advances in economic development, technological change, innovations in management, marketing, and pricing value in the beef industry (for just a few examples see here, here, here, here, and here), we've seen gains in beef production and quality. Additionally, in 2007 compared to 1977 we were able to produce the same amount of beef using roughly 30% fewer cattle and 30% less land. Feed and and water usage were down between 15-20% with a 16% lower carbon footprint (Capper, 2007). All of these factors have culminated in a healthier, more nutritious, higher quality product with a lower carbon footprint. We can't say the same about methane associated with fossil fuels and transportation which continues to flow at greater rates and doesn't get recycled. 

Source: https://www.nass.usda.gov/Newsroom/2021/01-29-2021.php 

So when you get in your car to go to your favorite restaurant, the associated methane and CO2 emissions that result represents new and long lasting emissions. For the most part the steak or burger on your plate doesn't directly add any new warming potential to the atmosphere that didn't already exist, nor has any steak or burger you may have eaten in the last 30 years based on this data! 

Are all sources of beef equal?

Why focus on U.S. beef production and consumption in this discussion? Because in the Politico article and in many conversations like this, the context is often subtly switched between consumers of U.S. beef and consumption of beef sourced in other parts of the world as if they are substitutes. This change in context ignores important differences between technological capabilities and production practices but also differences in incomes, tastes, and preferences. A lot of the criticism of U.S. beef may actually be true in relation to beef produced and consumed in other parts of the world. We are not burning down rain forests in the U.S. in order to produce and consume beef, and the indirect connection between U.S. beef production and consumption and deforestation in other parts of the world is very weak due to the way global beef markets function. However, there are opportunities to make beef greener in other parts of the world that should not be ignored and should be researched further (see Mrode et al., 2019; Silva et al., 2018; Gates, 2017).

Should we just ignore the very potent warming potential represented by methane emissions associated with U.S. beef consumption just because it represents a thin slice of the global pie that is relevant to climate change? No, but we should put it in the proper perspective, and think of the overall global portfolio of choices we make in our diets and daily lives and not get anchored on facts divorced from the proper context so we can actually make impactful decisions. 

Consumer fads and a climate friendly behavior change strategy

As discussed above, even if all U.S. consumers gave up beef tomorrow cold turkey, there is an upper limit on the impact we can have globally. Modest changes either reducing beef consumption or switching to alternative proteins would be even less impactful. However, we should still recognize that lots of small changes could add up to have a meaningful effect in the aggregate. Given the behavioral and nutritional challenges that make any meaningful reduction in beef consumption mostly impractical at a population level (and ignoring the elephant in the room that is transportation) it is an empirical question as to what other seemingly arbitrary lifestyle changes we could suggest to decrease our impact on climate - maybe that once a week trip to the grocer to buy in bulk instead of having the fleet of Amazon, UPS, and FedEx trucks down your street multiple times a week is one example. Other consumerist trends we've seen that could also be adding to our carbon footprint could involve the fads and infatuation with local, natural, and organic food consumption, and the notorious 'free-from' food marketing campaigns that tend to demonize climate saving technologies (see here, here, here, here, here, and here for related info). 

Putting the lens of behavioral science on this, we need to think about the problem we are trying to solve or outcome we are trying to achieve (climate change mitigation) and consider the behavioral map that relates all of the target actions we could take to achieve this outcome. What role does science literacy and misinformation and disinformation play in the trends and food fads noted above that could lead to hesitancy to adopt climate saving technologies? Which solutions are technically correct but also the most impactful at scale from a behavior change perspective? Is a reduction in modern U.S. beef production or consumption the target behavior we should be trying to change compared to other options? Maybe for some people but I'm not convinced it is a global solution. 

Getting the most nutritional bang for our climate buck

How do we know we are getting the most nutritional bang for our climate buck when thinking through this? In a 2010 Food and Nutrition Research article, authors introduce the Nutrient Density to Climate Impact (NDCI) index. Metrics like this could add some perspective. According to their work:

"the NDCI index was 0 for carbonated water, soft drink, and beer and below 0.1 for red wine and oat drink. The NDCI index was similar for orange juice (0.28) and soy drink  (0.25). Due to a very high-nutrient density, the NDCI index for milk was substantially higher (0.54) than for the other beverages. Future discussion on how changes in food consumption patterns might help avert climate change need to take both GHG emission and nutrient density of foods and beverages into account."

Authors Drewnowski, Adam et al. apply this more nuanced approach to 34 different food categories including meat and dairy:

"Efforts to decrease global GHGEs while maintaining nutritionally adequate, affordable, and acceptable diets need to be guided by considerations of the ND and environmental impact of different foods and food groups. In a series of recent studies, the principal sustainability measure was carbon cost expressed in terms of GHGEs (8, 14, 15). Testing the relation between nutrient profile of foods and their carbon footprint can help identify those food groups that provide both calories and optimal nutrition at a low carbon cost."

Just as combining trips and carpooling might be effective ways to reduce your carbon footprint getting the most out of every mile driven and gallon of gas used, to be truly impactful regarding climate change, we should be trying to get the most out of every bite we take and ounce we drink. 

Weighing efficiency and values

The previous discussion starts to sound a lot like a position related to optimization and efficiency which ultimately requires making value judgements that science and economics can't make.

As discussed in Heyne, Boettke, and Prychitco's text The Economic Way of Thinking:

"efficiency is essentially an evaluative term. It always has to do with the ratio fo the value of output to the value of input...in effect it depends on what people want done and how they value what they want done. It follows that the efficiency of any process can change with changes in valuations."

What I am getting at is that maybe people prefer to have sustenance from beef vs rice or other alternatives and we have to give weight to that in a policy framework. Physical and technical facts alone can never fully determine efficiency. That's what makes economics so powerful. Its the study of people's choices and how they are made compatible. It is way more than just the study of the technical allocation of resources because it forces us to consider each individual's preferences based on the knowledge of their specific circumstances of time and place.

Science and economics can't make value judgements for us, but we should strive get the facts right, and the stories we tell with the facts need to be true to the science behind them. 

Additional and Related References:

HJ. L. Capper, The environmental impact of beef production in the United States: 1977 compared with 2007, Journal of Animal Science, Volume 89, Issue 12, December 2011, Pages 4249–4261, https://doi.org/10.2527/jas.2010-3784

Rafael De Oliveira Silva, Luis Gustavo Barioni, Giampaolo Queiroz Pellegrino, Dominic Moran, The role of agricultural intensification in Brazil's Nationally Determined Contribution on emissions mitigation, Agricultural Systems, Volume 161, 2018, Pages 102-112, ISSN 0308-521X, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agsy.2018.01.003.

Mrode, R., Ojango, J., Okeyo, A. M., & Mwacharo, J. M. (2019). Genomic Selection and Use of Molecular Tools in Breeding Programs for Indigenous and Crossbred Cattle in Developing Countries: Current Status and Future Prospects. Frontiers in genetics, 9, 694. https://doi.org/10.3389/fgene.2018.00694

C. Alan Rotz et al. Environmental footprints of beef cattle production in the United States, Agricultural Systems (2018). DOI: 10.1016/j.agsy.2018.11.005 

https://phys.org/news/2019-03-beef-resource-greenhouse-gas-emissions.html

What cowboys can teach us about feeding the world. Could a cattle ranch in Australia improve food security in Africa? Bill Gates. Gates Notes. July 18, 2017. https://www.gatesnotes.com/Development/What-Cowboys-Can-Teach-Us-About-Feeding-the-World?WT.mc_id=07_18_2017_10_AustralianCattle_BG-LI_&WT.tsrc=BGLI

Scarborough, P., & Rayner, M. (2010). Nutrient Density to Climate Impact index is an inappropriate system for ranking beverages in order of climate impact per nutritional value. Food & nutrition research, 54, 10.3402/fnr.v54i0.5681. https://doi.org/10.3402/fnr.v54i0.5681

Drewnowski, Adam et al. “Energy and nutrient density of foods in relation to their carbon footprint.” The American journal of clinical nutrition 101 1 (2015): 184-91 .

Allen, M.R., Shine, K.P., Fuglestvedt, J.S. et al. A solution to the misrepresentations of CO2-equivalent emissions of short-lived climate pollutants under ambitious mitigation. npj Clim Atmos Sci 1, 16 (2018) doi:10.1038/s41612-018-0026-8

GWP* Better Captures the Impact of Methane's Warming Potential

Understanding the differences in the way CO2 vs methane behaves is fundamental to understanding their respective roles impacting climate change, and personal and policy decisions related to mitigating future warming. A practical example, properly accounting for these differences, the global impact of U.S. beef consumption (or other ruminant food sources) over time in terms of carbon footprint (related to enteric emissions) could be even less than previously understood. Understanding this can help direct attention to those areas where we can make the biggest difference in terms impacting climate change.

 From:

 Allen, M.R., Shine, K.P., Fuglestvedt, J.S. et al. A solution to the misrepresentations of CO2-equivalent emissions of short-lived climate pollutants under ambitious mitigation. npj Clim Atmos Sci 1, 16 (2018) doi:10.1038/s41612-018-0026-8


"While shorter-term goals for emission rates of individual gases and broader metrics encompassing emissions’ co-impacts2,6,31 remain potentially useful in defining how cumulative contributions will be achieved, summarising commitments using a metric that accurately reflects their contributions to future warming would provide greater transparency in the implications of global climate agreements as well as enabling fairer and more effective design of domestic policies and measures."

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41612-018-0026-8#Sec1

See also:

A Green New Deal for Agriculture?

Religiousity, Beef, and the Environment

EconTalk: Matt Ridley, Martin Weitzman, Climate Change and Fat Tails

Hybrid Corn vs. Hybrid Cars

Welfare Analysis: Just Do It!

Some Beef Related Posts From the Incidental Economist

I'm a big fan of the Incidental Economist blog where I have learned a lot about healthcare economics. Recently healthcare economist Austin Frakt has shared some video monologues discussing meat, fake meat, health and the environment.

In the first video he discusses some recent research related to meat consumption and health, mainly there is no evidence that red meat presents a major health concern. And the challenge of observational data and research related to this:



However, in this  next video, I think the facts being referenced are making some assumptions that need clarification. Mainly, there seems to be an assumption that beef produced and consumed in the U.S. is exchangeable with beef produced in developing countries or that land devoted to beef production is exchangeable for land that could be used for food production purposes. Reducing consumption of beef in the U.S. likely won't have the impacts on consumption in other countries in the simplified way this story is often told.  U.S. beef accounts for .5% or less of global greenhouse gas emissions accounting for fossil fuel and grain consumption, as well as land use alternatives. And most of the land used for beef production isn't suitable for any other type of food production. Ruminants are able to convert inedible plant and fiber on marginal lands to highly palatable nutrient dense food sources. Adding a little grain (accounting for ~ 7% of the U.S. corn crop) can shorten the time grazing and increase production actually decreasing lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions.



I
n this final video, Dr. Frakt discusses how alternative/fake meat products are in fact NOT a healthier alternative to real beef:

The Cult of Statistical Significance...or...no bacon is not really as bad or worse than cigarettes!

 In their very well known article "The Cult of Statistical Significance", Ziliak and McCloskey write:

"William Sealy Gosset (1876-1962)  aka “Student,” working as Head Experimental Brewer at Guinness’s Brewery, took an economic approach to the logic of uncertainty. Fisher erased the consciously economic  element, Gosset's "real error."  We want to bring it back….Statistical significance should be a tiny part of an inquiry concerned with the size and importance of relationships."

For those unfamiliar with the history of statistics, Gosset was the one that came up with the well known t-test so many of us run across in any basic statistics class. A lot of issues are addressed in this paper, but to me one related theme is the importance of 'practical' or what I might call 'actionable' statistics. And context matters. Are the results relevant for practical consideration? Is the context realistic?  Are there proper controls? What about identification? For instance, not long ago I wrote about a study that attempted to correlate distance from a farm field and exposure to pesticides and autism that has been criticized for a number of these things, even though the results were found to be statistically significant.  As well as this one attempting to claim that proteins from Bt (read "gmo") corn were found in the blood of pregnant women. And...not to forget, the famous Serelini study that claimed to connect roundup herbicide to cancer in rats, that was so bad that it was retracted. Context, and economics (how people behave in the context of real world decision making scenarios) really matter. Take for instance, California's potential consideration to put roundup on a list of known carcinogens that might actually cause environmental harms in a number of ways magnitudes worse than roundup itself ever could.

So what does this all have to do with bacon? Well recently you might have heard a headline like this: “Processed meats rank alongside smoking as cancer causes – WHO.” 

This is a prime example of the importance of putting science and statistical significance, effect sizes, context (like baseline risks in the case of WHO quote above) and practical significance into perspective. Millions of people have heard this headline, taken the science at face value, and either acted on it or given it way more credence and lip service than it deserves. At a minimum every time for the rest of their life they have a piece of bacon they might think, wow, this could be almost as bad or worse than smoking.

Economist Jayson Lusk has a really nice post related to this with several quotes from a number of places, and I'm going to borrow a few here. From an article he links to in the Atlantic:

"the practice of lumping risk factors into categories without accompanying description—or,  preferably, visualization—of their respective risks practically invites people to view them as like-for-like. And that inevitably led to misleading headlines like this one in the Guardian: “Processed meats rank alongside smoking as cancer causes – WHO.”

“One thing rarely communicated in these sorts of reports is the baseline level of risk.  Let's use Johnson's example and suppose that eating three pieces of bacon everyday causes cancer risk to increases 18%.  From what baseline?  To illustrate, let's say the baseline risk of dying from colon cancer (which processed meat is supposed to cause) is 2% so that 2 out of every 100 die from colon cancer over their lifetime (this reference suggests that's roughly the baseline lifetime risk for everyone including those who eat bacon).  An 18% increase means your risk is now 2.36% for a 0.36 percentage point increase in risk.  I suspect a lot of people that would accept a less-than-half-a-percentage point increase in risk for the pleasure of eating bacon….studies that say that eating X causes a Y% increase in cancer are unhelpful unless I know something about my underlying, baseline probably of cancer is without eating X.”

The real cult of statistical significance (and in effect all of the so called science that follows from it) is a cult like believing and following by multitudes that hear about this study or that, overly dramatized by media headlines, (even if it is a solid study, potentially taken out of context and misinterpreted to fit a given agenda or emotive response), and then synthesized into corporate marketing campaigns and unfortunately public policies. Think gmo labeling, gluten free, antibiotic free,  climate change policy, ad naseam.

How Safe Is Your Ground Beef? Well, you tell me did you cook it properly?

I have recently came across an article in consumer reports:

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/food/how-safe-is-your-ground-beef

This really gets interesting at the end when consumer reports actually recommends only grass fed and/or organic beef. (Never mind the negative environmental/sustainability issues that can also be associated with that) And their results on bacterial contamination are based on irrelevant comparisons between 'raw' ground beef. They did not test differences between properly handled and prepared ground beef, because the differences would be zero! It also makes me wonder, by making these kinds of recommendations are they possibly endangering some consumers by shaping perceptions in such a way that could promote 'risk homeostasis' - making consumers feel safer and likely take fewer precautions if they buy organic/grass fed premium brands? It seems to me the only responsible thing they should recommend is proper cooking and handling since that has the largest significant impact on safety regardless of how it's raised or marketed. I haven't actually unpacked the analysis or methodology on the 'raw' beef comparisons (as irrelevant as they may be) but am interested to see what kind of reactions come about from those that have!

Neu5Gc and Red Meat

There was a really nice article via Pork Network related to a recent study linking inflammation and cancer to a sugar molecule found in red meat called Neu5Gc.

http://www.porknetwork.com/news/murphy-sugar-coating-big-c

"James Paulson at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif., who is considered an expert on Neu5Gc and other similar compounds, suggested as much. “This report might stimulate entrepreneurial breeders to develop cattle stocks deficient in this nonhuman sugar,” he quoted in the story. Varki even suggested that the study might point the way toward developing an antidote to counteract the risk of cancer."

I have already seen some in social media proposing that this is another reason we should eat only local, organic, or grass fed meat if we are going to eat red meat at all. Red meat often gets a bad rap because all sorts of products fall under the umbrella of 'red meat.' However, I wonder if most people and most studies distinguish healthy meat choices (like the 29 cuts of lean beef that provide comparable levels of saturated fats + loads more nutrients than an equivalent serving of boneless skinless chicken). 

Even if the results are replicated and causal connections are actually established in human health, additional research would have to confirm that production practices can influence Neu5Gc levels before we can make any claims that organic/natural/hormone free/antibiotic free/local sources are better in this regard. The more likely scenario I think is that proposed by the pork writer above, and that  the real impact of this research will be played out in modern livestock production systems and breeding programs that use advanced techniques (i.e. quantitative genetic applications such as QTL/MAS) or who knows even some of the first commercially viable animal biotech applications accepted by consumers as beneficial to human health. 

We have after all seen that biotech applications in crop plants have led to the elimination of certain toxic pesticides and the reduction of the use of toxic herbicides, as well as reduced levels of carcinogens like fumonisin. 

Stacking Technology In Stockers Adds Up To More Pounds | Stocker/Backgrounders content from BEEF Magazine

This equates to a lower carbon footprint and improved sustainability. All market driven. Good for the environment, the producer,and the consumer. 

"Cattle receiving an ionophore either gain more on the same amount of feed or gain the same on less feed," Sawyer explains. "Generally speaking, with stocker calves on pastures of reasonable quality, we expect an increased rate of gain of 8%-12%, so maybe an extra 20-25 lbs. in a typical turn of stocker calves."

http://m.beefmagazine.com/stockerbackgrounders/stacking-technology-stockers-adds-more-pounds?page=2

I, Chicken

“I was really shocked when I bought my first ever whole chicken tonight. Five bucks? For a whole chicken? KFC charges five bucks for one breast and one wing. How can a farmer breed, hatch, raise, feed, house, butcher, package, and ship a chicken for five bucks? Blows my mind.”

This was a very insightful observation made by a friend of mine. The subject of economics in a lot of ways is just a collection of stories consisting of observations and insights like this. This particular insight speaks directly to the concepts of comparative advantage from Ricardo and specialization and trade from Adam Smith- read more about these economists at the Library of Economics and Liberty.

Because of the principle of comparative advantage,  you choose to buy the chicken from the retailer at $5 as opposed to raising it yourself or even sourcing it locally at a much greater cost in terms of money, time, and perhaps the environment.  Because of the principle of comparative advantage we often don’t raise most of our own food or make our own cars or many of our own clothes or even source most of these things locally either. The concept of comparative advantage and the associated gains from specialization and trade lead to an increase in the size of the ‘economic pie’ which can be used to make everyone better off. 

Getting a chicken at your local retailer for $5 is also a testament to the market’s ability to solve the the fundamental problem of economics, the knowledge problem. This is a problem that exists because the necessary information for allocating scarce resources does not exist in concentrated or integrated form, but is incomplete and dispersed among individuals. Through markets, prices bring all of this incomplete and dispersed information together in a coordinated manner, producing a ‘spontaneous order’ as described by economist F.A. Hayek.

 We get $5 chicken because a spontaneous order comprised of specialized farmers, feed and nutrition specialists, veterinarians, pharmaceutical companies, breeders, packers, processors, supply chain managers, and retailers all cooperate to bring healthy, sustainable, and affordable food to your table. Modern food supply chains, made possible by companies such as Cargill, ADM, and retailers like Wal-Mart, have not only allowed us to get foods cheaper than we can produce ourselves or source locally, but may have also helped to reduce our impact on the environment.  

Another way to think about the knowledge problem and the concept of a spontaneous order in relation to $5 chickens is to admit that no single person really knows how to make a chicken any more than a pencil, as illustrated so perfectly by Leonard E. Read in his famous essay ‘I, Pencil.’ Milton Friedman does a good job summarizing the essay in 2 minutes in the following You-Tube video: 

 

It is also important to recognize that $5 chicken owes a great debt to entrepreneurial driven technological change and economic growth, and this is truly mind blowing. As economist Robert Lucas said “once you start thinking about growth it's hard to think about anything else.”

Think, “I’Chicken.”